


Waterfall (I)

by katya1828



Series: Reunited: Deckerstar Moments [4]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cute, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Lucifer Returns From Hell, POV Chloe, POV Chloe Decker, Post-Season/Series 04, Reunions, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:41:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24718450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katya1828/pseuds/katya1828
Summary: Lucifer attempts to escape from Hell and return to Chloe, but his plan goes awry and he ends up trapped between the realms. Fortunately, Chloe and Trixie discover him in time to provide bright ideas for his escape…Written a while back, inspired by this beautiful edit by Tania:https://twitter.com/i/status/1255052810082795521
Relationships: Chloe Decker & Lucifer Morningstar, Chloe Decker & Trixie Espinoza, Chloe Decker & Trixie Espinoza & Lucifer Morningstar, Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar, Trixie Espinoza & Lucifer Morningstar
Series: Reunited: Deckerstar Moments [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722013
Comments: 14
Kudos: 78





	1. Chapter 1

They are on a picnic, just Chloe and Trixie—somewhere close to the edge of town, quiet and tucked away among towering pines. She’d simply pulled the car onto the soft verge, and they’d tumbled out. She, Trixie, the blanket and the hamper, and…

… she misses him so much.

Lucifer.

Any thought of him clamps a dry tightness in her chest and throat. She wonders what it would be like if he was with them now, how happy they’d be, but it’s silly really, dreaming like that. It’s painful too, so she stops. She’s got Trixie. She still has love in her life. Which is more than Lucifer has, stuck as he is in Hell.

The rustle of the wind in the trees vies with the none-too-distant drone of the freeway and the inescapable hum of the city. They find a flat spot on the scrubby ground and share sushi, pineapple fingers, and cake. Trixie seems content enough, though chocolate cake no longer sends her into the raptures it once did. They watch birds collecting nesting material while they eat. A few years ago, Trixie would have said it was the kind of place you’d find fairies, but she’s growing too old and wise for that now too, and when they finish, Trixie buries herself a book.

Chloe thinks about… no, she must quit thinking about Lucifer. It hurts so much, and she can’t conceal her pain. It isn’t fair on Trixie. Even if she is old enough to understand a little, she shouldn’t _have_ to deal constantly with her mother’s sorrow.

Chloe lies down on the blanket and stares at a sky bleached with cloud, shielding her eyes from the brightness. There’s an empty cavity where her heart should be. That kiss goodbye… Was _that_ when her heart was torn from her?

She mustn’t think of him constantly. It isn’t fair… Mustn’t think… Mustn’t think…

“Mom! Mommy!” Trixie shakes her, and she awakens abruptly. She’d not meant to doze off, but then she’s been sleeping badly, her mind constantly buzzing and body restless.

“What? What is it?” She sits up, blinking at her daughter. Trixie doesn’t look distressed, but there is a strange, wild vibrancy about her that alarms Chloe all the same. “What’s going on?”

“I can’t tell you. You won’t believe me.” Trixie is tugging her urgently, willing her to rise. “Come on. You have to see for yourself.”

“See what?”

Trixie leads her by the hand. They weave betwixt roots and brambles, farther from the picnic blanket than she’d really like Trixie to have strayed alone. Trixie’s excitement has reverted to that of a younger kid again, one who still believes in those fairies, so Chloe goes with it. There won’t be many more sweet moments like this.

Chloe laughs, breathless, as she runs. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see. We’re nearly there.”

They burst into a clearing like something out of a dream. Weeping willows dip their branches into a glistening pool, on the far side of which cascades a waterfall. The sound of the rushing torrent smothers the last murmurs of traffic.

“Wow,” she says, “it’s so pretty here. Hey, Trixie, no… where are you going? That looks dangerous.”

Trixie is skirting along the edge of the pool, the banks slippery with mud and treacherous amid the tangle of roots and reeds. “See, Mommy, look?”

“I’m serious, Trixie. Stop messing around. You’re old enough to know better.” She launches forward, stretching her hand to reach her daughter, but Trixie has stopped on a small rocky ledge beside the waterfall. She’s grinning and waving madly.

Waving at the man who’s standing beneath the waterfall.

Waving at the man whose buff shape and lofty build seems dreadfully like Lucifer's… and who, she can just make out, is waving sheepishly back.

Chloe freezes, her fingers tented as if in prayer and clamped to her lips. A strange, wonderful warmth tingles through her veins, as she allows herself to hope. His eyes meet hers, the intensity of his gaze slicing through the water, which otherwise obscures her view of him like frosted glass. A bittersweet pang fills the cavity in her chest.

She believes, because she’ll _die_ if this strange scene before her isn’t real. It’s him. It _is_ Lucifer, and yet… how? She scoots around the pool, careless of the obstacles for which she’d chastised Trixie. She’s closed the gap between them in a heartbeat, and she’s teetering on the rock, carefully manoeuvring Trixie so she’s safe behind her.

He’s barely a yard from her, and he’s smiling, but maybe that’s for Trixie’s sake. To absorb the sight of him is the work of an anxious moment. He’s standing right beneath the flow, justifiably more rumpled than his debonair norm. His hair is flattened to his head, and his clothes—simpler than usual, a plain blue top and slacks—cling wetly to every contour of his frame. Indeed, everything about him is tinged slightly blue, and behind him is… To be honest, she’s not sure what it is, but it looks like an entire universe. A blanket of midnight blue pierced with twinkling stars reach out toward eternity. Maybe it’s a mural, maybe it’s a mirage, but she can’t focus on it for long.

The desperation and yearning in his eyes lance her deeply, but there’s hope there too. She wants to hold him, to kiss him _so_ much.

“Lucifer?” She stretches an unsteady hand toward him, her disbelief heightening, because this has to be a dream. She’s slumbering by the picnic basket…

“Detective… no!”

He reaches out the same moment she does, as if they’re puppets operated by the same master’s strings. He’s warning her off; she realizes that too late, because the instant her fingertips enter the spray, there’s a crack. Blue sparks fly, the sensation akin to an electric shock, and she snatches back her smarting hand

From the other side, Lucifer roars in frustration and smashes the side of his fist through the water. There’s a loud crack of and a flash of blue lightening. Lucifer’s fist rebounds from the edge of the water, and he hisses as if scorched. Trixie squeals, and Chloe pushes her farther behind.

“Stings like a bitch, doesn’t it?” Lucifer laughs joylessly, rubbing his hand. “And there, my dear Detective, you see my problem.”

“He’s trapped,” says Trixie. “It’s okay, Lucifer. This sort of thing happens all the time in story books and it usually ends okay. We’ll get you out of there.”

“I’m trapped in a waterfall, not a storybook, Beatrice.”

“Same difference,” quips Trixie. “And you’re in the Bible. Plenty of stories in there.”

“Touché." Lucifer huffs. "Though I’d argue very few of them have happy endings. Not for me, at any rate.”

Chloe smiles tentatively, lips thinned, looking between them. “You’re due a happy ending then, right?”


	2. Chapter 2

Chloe sits on the rock, with Trixie leaning against her. They’re so near to Lucifer, yet still so far away. He crouches down, sodden against the backdrop of stars, and unfolds a story that pulls her every heartstring taut.

Amenadiel had found another angel willing to rule Hell, a power-hungry younger sibling, and brought them down to replace Lucifer. Nevertheless, a “rumpus” had broken out when Lucifer had attempted to leave.

“Some of the demons didn’t take kindly to my lack of commitment,” he explained wryly. “I couldn’t just fly away without a fuss. So, I tried a backdoor.”

His Mother, the Goddess of All Creation, had made these backdoors, when the universe was young—portals between the realms, through pools and springs, rives and waterfalls. The Goddess had used them herself, firstly to sow the seeds of creation, and then, when wrathful, to wreak plague, flood, famine and havoc.

“Her sycophants knew them, these watery places, and they considered them sacred,” explained Lucifer’s. “Shame they didn’t consider _washing_ so sacred back them. Ugh, you would believe how ripe folk were before the invention of the power-shower, and that Cain was the muckiest of the lot… but I digress. Trouble is, being Mum, she didn’t make them easy to negotiate. I hoped _I_ might negotiate her loving little boobytraps, but it seems her nasty rules apply even to me. And now?” He raises his hands and pulls a jokey expression of despair, though this is far from a joke. “Now I’m stuck here, between the realms. Can’t go back. Can’t go forward.”

Chloe nods, tight-lipped. Her mind is spinning. He’s here; he’s on Earth and she can be with him and speak with him, if not touch him. This _is_ progress, and just another puzzle to solve, like a crime. She needs to focus, keep her cumbersome emotions out of this.

“Have you _any_ idea how to escape?” she asks.

“Punching and kicking _doesn’t_ work.” Lucifer sighs. “Believe me, I’ve tried, but there could be another way. Mum loves presents, and in ancient times, her followers figured this out. Poor sods tossed the least manky of their pitiful little belongings into spring and rivers for her.”

“Did that work?”

“Oh, never. She laughed at their most precious treasures in in distain. She only respects grand gestures—”

Trixie pipes up: “Mom, how about you drive the car into the pool? Would your Mommy like a new car, Lucifer?”

Chloe’s represses her instinct to shout that it’s a terrible idea, and lets Lucifer make the call. It’s just a car. She would even endure the rap for fly-tipping if it got Lucifer out.

He mulls it over briefly, then shakes his head. “I like your thinking, Beatrice, but Mother was never exactly a petrolhead. More into sacrifice. Humans, usually. Sometimes a severed limb might suffice.” He brightens, sitting bolt upright. “I know, I could cut my wings off… or maybe not. Mum would know I wouldn’t see _that_ as too much of a sacrifice.”

He crumples in on himself again, although Chloe can’t help being mildly relieved he’s not pursuing the route of self-harm. One day, she hopes, she will have a serious conversation with him about it.

“With Mum in another dimension, it could be a moot point anyway,” he is saying. “She might not even know I’m here. On the other hand, see those stars behind me?” Chloe nods, scarcely daring to look at the galaxies spiralling behind him, lest they suck them all in like a black hole. “I’ve a nasty feeling that’s _her_ dimension, and I’m already on the brink. Mother’s portal, Mother’s rules, and I’ll most likely be dragged into the dimension whence I booted her before too long.”

Chloe tried to repress a surge of panic. At least, with him trapped here, they were close; she could see him, visit him. But if he could be whisked away, any second, this time forever. They’d made no progress. None at all.

“How about your brother?” she asks. “Might he have any fresh ideas?”

“Amenadiel and ideas—fresh or stale—have never been regular bedfellows.” He sniggers, clearly enjoying the distraction, although he’s looking more bedraggled by the second—arms now wrapped around his knees. “Not that Amenadiel has ever had many bedfellows.”

“But there must be something—”

“How about we just _invite_ Lucifer to come out,” says Trixie. “It works for vampires, right? They can’t come in unless you ask them.”

Lucifer bridles. “I’m not a… Oh, if you insist, Beatrice. Anything’s worth a try. Ask away, Detective.”

Lucifer clambers to his feet. Chloe rises too, takes a deep breath and reaches into the cusp of the spray; her fingertips prickle and burn, but she fixes on Lucifer. He needs her, and she needs him _so_ much.

“Lucifer, please come out. Please come back to me.” He strains toward her, palms braced against the seemingly rock-solid cusp of the water, mere inches from hers. Her voice is thick with emotion, mirroring the emotions that swim in his eyes. “I invite you home.”

Lucifer’s patience visibly snaps. He barges the water with his shoulder, his whole weight behind it; blue flame flashes, and he flies back, collapsing into a heap.

“Lucifer!”

Trixie’s cry of alarm drowns out Chloe’s frightened gasp. But he’s okay. He presses himself up, looking more irritated than damaged. And wetter and more bedraggled than ever. He flicks wet hair from his brow and puffs like a frustrated bull.

“Let’s put the urchin’s ideas on a backburner for now, shall we?”


	3. Chapter 3

It’s getting dark. Chloe and Trixie are wrapped together in the picnic blanket. Trixie seems sleepy, her head sinking toward Chloe’s lap. Lucifer has curled into a brooding, shivering ball. While only faint pinprick stars emerge in the skies above Chloe, the stars behind Lucifer grow dazzlingly bright, beautiful and terrible at once.

She yearns to comfort Lucifer as she can Trixie. He believes his Mother’s new universe is getting closer. He says he can sense her coming for him. All they can do is keep talking, keep trying to find ideas, keep hoping. It’s starting to feel desperate.

“So, you sent your mother to this other dimension,” says Chloe, still trying to get her head around it all. “And now it seems you’re being sucked toward that dimension. But if you had the power to send her there, surely you can get yourself out, somehow?”

“We’ve been through this.” Lucifer sounds as dejected as he looks. “I sliced between the dimensions with the flaming sword, which I don’t have anymore, so—”

“You still have your pain,” says Chloe quietly. “You ignited the sword with your pain, and it’s not like you’re in another universe yet. You said yourself, this is a portal. You’re stuck in between, so maybe—"

“I’m only halfway there, so maybe I can get through using only half of the correct kit? Detective, you’re a genius! If I channel my pain hard enough, maybe I can force my way through. It’s certainly worth a shot.”

She nods. She hates the idea of him hurting in any way, but their parting forever would wound them both far deeper.

She goes to rouse Trixie, but Trixie has obviously been listening. “You need to help him,” she says to Chloe, bright as at breakfast. “You hurt too, right? I mean, you’ve been hurting for ages, and it must hurt even worse, knowing that if we can’t get Lucifer out now, his mean Mom is going to steal him forever. It hurts me… and I’m not even _you_.”

Chloe fights the push of tears. Why must her daughter be so perceptive; she holds Trixie’s face and kisses her, but when she glances toward Lucifer, he’s shaking his head. “I can’t let you do that, Detective. If you try and enter the waterfall to meet me, you might be sucked in, and then the child will be all alone.”

Chloe is determined. That _won’t_ happen. Her heart is greedy, and she needs them both, and no power in the universe—Gods and Goddesses be damned—is going to keep Lucifer from her any longer. She gets up and takes Trixie’s hand.

She speaks firmly to her daughter. “Hold on to me, Trixie, and don’t let go. I’m going to try and help Lucifer, but I won’t leave you, I promise.”

“Don’t worry, Beatrice. I won’t _let_ her leave you. I’d die first.” Lucifer mutters this final vow beneath his breath. His steely sincerity is inarguable, but Chloe finds her will is just as tough.

She doesn’t mess about. She’s carried pain, loss and yearning as a daily burden for far too long. She concentrates on the pure feeling of it, the physical sensation. It churns and broils in her chest and stomach. It hurts. It _burns_. Boldly, without hesitation, she reaches toward the waterfall and toward Lucifer, and their gazes latch together.

Even diffused by the thick wall of water, the agony of longing writ large on his beautiful features robs her breath. Her sorrow turns to desperation; it scalds her and blisters and scours her very core. His teeth gritted, Lucifer forces his fist through the waters, and she can see he’s shaking. She’s shaking too, as she edges closer… closer.

Tiny blue lightning bolts fizzle about her fingers; it smarts, but it’s nothing compared to the wrenching pain in her heart as she focusses on what it would mean if this really was the bitter end… It hurts _so_ much. And it starts to work.

The wall of water _is_ yielding. She’s pushing through, and he’s inching toward her, his jaw set, his every sinew straining. Blue fire encircles him; his teeth are gritted and she knows he’s in torment, but he keeps on reaching for her, opening his hand.

Their fingertips brush, lightning cracks, then his hand envelops hers, engulfing hers completely, and it’s wonderful despite her pain. She perceives the seismic magnitude of his power, quaking through him. He’s straining so hard.

“Lucifer!” she gasps.

“Chloe.” Her name is a desperate plea. “I can’t… I can’t push any farther. Something’s dragging me back. I can feel it.”

Her face is soaked now too, her hair dripping. Trixie squeezes at her other hand, holding her fast in the world she knows and loves. She tries to drag Lucifer toward her, but he doesn’t budge, and she suddenly feels what he’s experiencing. He’s shaking because despite his own awesome strength, he’s struggling against an even greater force—the magnetic pull of the other dimension behind him, the gravitational pull of a million stars and suns, galaxies and black holes.

The potency of the Goddess of all Creation.

“I can’t… She… Mum… she must have spotted us somehow.” His words are stuttered, broken. “She… won’t let this happen. You have to… to let me go.”

It’s so wet, but she can still discern the tears in his eyes, his sorrow iridescent as a supernova. She clings to Trixie’s solid little hand as his hold on hers begins to slip. He’s leaving her again. Her heart begins to break all over again, and the pain is devastating. He’s slipping from her hold… and she’s not even kissed him again, repeated the goodbye kiss that has sustained her through her darkness.

To Hell with the Goddess of all Creation, she won’t let _that_ happen.

It’s the action of a heartbeat, but the effort of a lifetime. On instinct, he understands to make a final effortful push, she tugs him ever harder, and somehow, someway, she drags him down toward the kiss she’s craved for what feels like eternity.

Their lips brush together with a crack, a neon-blue fizzle of kinetic energy, then the pain ebbs and dies, and they both melt into the kiss. The world and at least two universes fall away, and they’re kissing properly, deeply, and he’s winding his arms around her, clinging fast, as if she was his rock, as he is hers. His love is so palpable, so all-compassing, that she forgets, albeit briefly, that their sorrows ever existed, and surrenders to the honeyed swirl of pleasure.

They break apart only when she’s breathless and dizzy, and they remain lost in each other’s touch and in each other’s eyes. The glint of his distress breaks her reverie—they’re both terrified this was just another kiss goodbye, a very final one at that, and she cannot bear it.

Trixie squeezes insistently on the hand she’s still reached behind her, making her aware of the world beyond their desperate, hopeful embrace.

“Firstly,” says Trixie, “Ew for the sloppy kissing. Secondly, you can both stop being sad now, because the weird stuff has gone away.”

And it’s true. Chloe’s soaking wet, and Lucifer is adorably bedraggled, but the waterfall has retreated to a trickle scarce worthy of the bathroom tap. Rather than cascading between two realms—or dimensions, or whatever—a meagre steamlet piddles down a normal looking rockface, which lacks any obvious fissure let alone a cosmic-scale portal.

“We did it!” Lucifer’s smile sparkles. Trixie finally lets her Mom’s hand drop, and Lucifer sweeps Chloe up into her arms. He kisses her deeply, with a possessive passion that sets her tingling and burning in ways that are purely wonderful. She reciprocates with interest, tangling her fingers in his wet hair, floating in his arms.

His strength feels as great as that celestial force that tried to keep him from her. Tried… but failed. Her will to keep him proved strong as any Goddess’s, and she pours all that determination and more into another enduring kiss.

_Ha! Take that, Goddess of All Creation! I wanted him more…_

Eventually, he swings her back down. She feels giddy, as Trixie leaps to join them in a damp but happy group hug. It’s dark and chilly now, but she hardly notices. Their happiness proves enough to keep them from shivering as they hurry back to the car, hand in hand and with Trixie between them.

Chloe slips into the driver seat, Lucifer besides her. Trixie bounces up and down, mega excited, in the back. Though their joy is wonderful, they’re all a little quieter than usual. Lucifer, particularly, seems stunned. Chloe guesses his battle against the gravitational pull of an entire universe was somewhat draining, on top of every of everything else he must’ve been through in Hell. She turns the heating on full blast

Still, to anybody looking on, they might just be an ordinary family who’ve been on a picnic, then got caught in the rain. And that thought? That has her grinning ear-to-ear. She rubs Lucifer’s damp thigh, and he grins back, and smothers her much smaller hand beneath his, before releasing her to drive.

There’s still much they need to talk about… but that can wait. She exhales the most satisfied sigh she’s enjoyed in an age. Her chest isn’t empty anymore.

Everything is perfect.

“Let’s go home,” she says.


End file.
